US Advisers Training Iraqi Troops, Peshmerga on Front Lines Against Islamic State

U.S. and coalition military trainers in northern Iraq are running mission rehearsal exercises close to the front lines for peshmerga immediately before they go into combat against the Islamic State.

British Army Maj. Ben Salt, one of those overseeing the effort to train and equip the Kurds, said Tuesday that, “mission specific training” is going on near the forward line of troops — a network of bunkers and trenches. The peshmerga — the armed force of the autonomous Kurdish regional government — and Iraqi army face-off there against the militants on the border of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Almost 400 personnel from the U.S., Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Norway, Finland and Hungary are involved in the training, he said. […]